This is an excerpt from my Aquidah/Fundamentals of Belief class at the Islamic Learning Foundation. I talk about the acceptance of actions based on faith...
I am constantly amazed and reminded of how balanced and comprehensive Islam is. In all honesty, I find that I have to constantly relearn these same lessons.
I think a lot about the concepts of Iman (faith) and Islam (practice). I am afraid of Islam (practice) with out Iman (faith). This class has given me some interesting food for thought on these concepts. That one reinforces and replenishes the other. And that one with out the other is deficient.
I recognize Islam as being the system prescribed by Allah (swt) to cultivate and express Iman (faith). It is a system that correlates with the nature of human beings. Yet it scares me to think that Aqidah is the condition for the validity and acceptance of actions by Allah (swt) because it makes me think of all the hard working and sincere people I know who don’t proclaim the Islamic Religion. I would like to believe that they are on the fitrah and that they do some how have Iman. (“Eman has more than seventy branches…the lowest of them is to remove any harmful object from the road, and modesty is a branch of Eeman, 175”) I want to believe that somehow their good actions will be accepted. I’m not exactly sure that a non-muslim necessarily falls into the category of disbeliever. I find comfort in the fact that ultimately Allah is the all Aware, and the Best Judge.
